Ah, hell, now she felt like crying.
He took off his hat and slung it over the fence post. His brown hair was matted down with sweat and he pushed his hands through it, making it stand up. It should have made him look ridiculous. It should have poured a big old bucket of cold water on those fires between her legs, but instead she just wanted to run her hands through his hair, cup his head in her hands, hold him still while she kissed him the way he’d kissed her.
If she were another kind of woman she might have hugged him, just put her arms around him and let him take it from there. But she wasn’t another kind of woman, she was Victoria Schulman, and she was never sure of her welcome. Never sure if reaching out would get her slapped in the face. And this man … he had plenty of reasons to slap her in the face. She’d fired him, after all, from the only job he’d ever had.
Eli licked his lips, his green eyes glowing in the growing twilight. Her skin expanded, every inch aware of his gaze. His proximity, the delicious nearness of him.
“Is that the only reason you came here?”
She knew what he was asking. Her heart pounded in her chest, but she couldn’t make herself respond. Owning this moment, her own desire, was too much and she wanted—needed—him to push her into it. To convince her she was safe.
“You want me to kiss you again, Tori?”
Say something
, she urged her dumb lips, her stupid brain. But she was drunk off two beers and him. Off the twilight and the fit of the jeans and the breeze that teased her nipples.
“I know you do, Tori. I can see it.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, embarrassed by her body’s wantonness.
His lip lifted in a smile that was so sexy her clothes nearly burned off. He was every matinee idol who got paid too much money to be pretty. He was every muscle-bound construction worker who’d never whistled at her. Every cool coffee barista who flirted with all the other women at Starbucks but never her. He was Eli Turnbull, whom she’d thought wicked, salacious, debauched thoughts about while touching herself.
“It’s in your eyes.” He reached for her. “It’s right here.”
His rough fingers grazed the skin of her neck, and she gasped as his touch ricocheted through her, pinging off skin and bone, muscle and blood, until her body was lit up like a pinball machine.
“Yes.” Her voice was a dry gasp, so she tried again, louder. “Yes.” Too loud. She wasn’t at a political rally. “I want you to kiss me.”
The silence burned and sizzled. “I botched it last time,” he said.
“It’s forgiven. Well, maybe not forgiven. You were out of line, but—”
“You liked it. It felt good, didn’t it, to be forced to feel something. To be out of control.”
How was it possible he wasn’t touching her? His words were making her crazy, her body climbing toward climax as if he had his hand down her pants. She was past putting words together—her hands were locked around her body so she wouldn’t go flying apart into the
heavens—so she nodded. Willing him to take it from there. To make her feel something again. More, this time. To not leave her to finish it on her own.
“If you want that again”—he ducked slightly, looking right into her eyes—“you have to kiss me. I won’t … I won’t bully you again. And I have to know we’re on the same page.”
Now, that was something of a cold shower. Her arms dropped to her sides.
“If that’s too much for you to own up to, Victoria, then you should head on back home. Because I can’t always be the bad guy so you don’t have to admit you like getting dirty.”
He had her pegged, right down to her cowardly underwear.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?” she asked, swallowing what little was left of her pride. “To get back at me for firing you?”
His heart broke for her, it really did. She was beautiful and she had no idea.
And at the same time he wished he had ten minutes alone in a room with her husband before the coward had taken the easy way out.
“Look at me, Victoria,” he breathed, his arms at his sides, his erection pushing hard against the zipper of his jeans. She had to be blind or innocent not to see how his body was reacting to her.
Her dropped-jaw look of astonishment, the way her eyes darted from his crotch to the sky over his head, would have made him laugh if he wasn’t sure it would run her off.
“Trust me. Hell, trust yourself. You’re beautiful. You’re sexy. And I want you like crazy. But … I have to know—”
She launched herself against him, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. Her sweet little tongue in his mouth.
He laughed before pushing his hands into her hair, holding her still for his kiss, but she wasn’t having any of that. There was no holding this woman still; he fell back against the fence, groaning when the sweet balance of her weight fell against his erection. He arched back hard into her and she gasped.
He’d never been kissed like this, like he was water and she was dying of thirst, and he felt control slipping from between his fingers.
“Tori,” he breathed, bending his knees slightly to take her weight so he could slide his hand between them, over the curve of her breast. She shuddered against him, her nipple hard in his fingers, a pebble he rolled with his thumb and forefinger, and she stopped devouring him for long enough to cry out against his lips.
The T-shirt she wore was a curse, fighting him as he tried to get beneath it to the smooth, hot silk of her skin. He couldn’t get any leverage. Couldn’t hold her and touch her and kiss her all at the same time.
He pulled back.
“No.” She kissed him again and he went with it, because she felt so good against him. But then the need to touch her made him crazy again and he lifted her away.
“We need to …” He shook his head, distracted by her pink lips, the cloudy look in her sapphire eyes.
“Go inside.”
Yes!
His body roared.
Inside!
But his head was a little confused. A few steps behind. For some reason, he felt like he should argue.
“Are you … sure?”
Looping her arms around his neck, she smiled at him. “You have no idea how sure I am. Hurry, Eli. Before this feeling goes away.”
He kept his eyes open as she kissed him, looking past her hair as he walked toward the barn, praying for a total lack of gopher holes.
This was some kind of luck, having Victoria Schulman in his arms, ready to sell him the land across the lake. And he wasn’t a man used to luck. Happiness put an edge on his desire, made it raw and sharp. Painful almost, cutting and hacking at his control.
His boots scraped on the stone floor of the stable and his eyes were slow to adjust to the sudden darkness. He tripped, righted himself, and turned left to the would-be office, so that he could put her down on the mini-fridge.
“You better have a condom in here,” she whispered into his ear before taking the lobe in her teeth.
“Damn it.” He didn’t lift her, just grabbed her hand and pulled her off the fridge and through the stable toward his truck.
“What …?” She stopped and pointed at the house. “I don’t want to drive anywhere.”
“Condoms are in my truck.” Her eyebrows rose. “It’s …” The back of his neck itched, his skin shrank down to nothing. “I don’t have women at my house.”
“So you have them in your truck?” she squealed, pulling against his hand. “You are totally emotionally stunted.”
“So?”
This was him. And he couldn’t change it and didn’t want to.
“That’s so hot to me.”
She took off for the truck and he had to jog to keep up with her.
“You’re a little messed up, aren’t you?” he asked, and she laughed.
“You have no idea.” She yanked open the passenger-seat door and hoisted herself inside, and he ran a hand over the curve of her ass as she climbed in.
“You should wear jeans more often,” he murmured, admiring her curves. Admiring everything about her—the way her hair poured over her shoulder like a night sky, the way her eyes lit up like stars. The way her smile turned her into a siren.
“And you should get in here.”
chapter
12
This was her
, Victoria Schulman, acting the vixen and she couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe how much fun it was. How liberating. This was something that happened to other people. Sex in a truck.
She licked her lips and he was on her so fast it was like being hit by a linebacker. A train. He filled the cab, pushing her into the fabric and vinyl of the seat. And she loved it. She loved it so much she laughed as he kissed her. She purred and groaned as he slid his hands up under her shirt, pulling it over her head.
She’d gained some weight and most of it had gone into her breasts and she was very aware of how nice they looked in her white demi-bra. Perhaps, subconsciously, she had picked that bra when she was getting ready to walk over here. But she was happy that he seemed to agree, cupping her breasts with his hands, licking the upper curves.
Oh Lord, the scruff on his chin scratched her soft skin, and it was so ridiculously manly. So carnal, she felt heat and moisture pool between her legs. Sweat gathered under her hair and she wondered, with a giddy thrill, if they were going to steam up the windows.
“Do you want to go inside?” He stared down at her breasts as if he were asking them the question.
“No … ahh!” He bit her nipples. Through her bra. And then he sucked. Hard. And it was as if there were
coils between her breasts and her brain and the deep ache between her legs. And as he sucked her those coils glowed red hot.
I’m going to come
, she thought, lost in this storm.
Like this
. Right now, if only she could open her legs so he could rest that wonderful erection against her. That was all she needed, something hard … right there.
But he was heavy and she couldn’t move, and a sob rose in her throat.
“Come on, Eli,” she whispered and he leaned up, resting his weight on his elbows by her ears.
The smile on his face made her nervous.
“You need a second?” he asked, blowing a little kiss against the corner of her lips. Struggling, she turned, tried to lure him in for another one of those long, slow soul kisses the man was so wickedly good at. But he was elusive. An elusive devil.
“You want to slow down?”
“No.”
“Ah, speed up?”
“Yes.” He didn’t do anything. Just stared down at her and she lifted her head to try to kiss him, and when he dodged her she chomped her teeth at him.
His low laughter rumbled against her chest.
Fine
, she thought and slid her hand between them, until the hard length of him beneath his jeans was in her hand. He groaned, pushing that erection into her palm.
She squeezed, licked her lips, and he groaned, resting his forehead against hers. “Maybe I need a second,” he whispered.
“No!”
All of the sex she’d had over the years—not all that much, but enough—had been on her husband’s schedule. Joel had even decided when they should get pregnant, coming to her like clockwork in the middle of her cycle. How many times had she wished he would linger,
taking a minute to make sure she was ready, or that she was having a good time.
All of those little disappointments and missed opportunities, they all coalesced into a selfish need to have this now. Her way.
Her fingers undid his fly and slipped into his briefs until she felt his skin, so hot, so soft against hers. The spongy head of his penis jerked against her touch and she felt the small beads of moisture leaking from him.
“Now.”
He swore under his breath, pulling something from the glove box, while she tortured both of them with her hands down his pants, tracing the fragile veins, finding the heavy sac, the wiry pubic hair. Thrilling in all of it. Delighting in him.
Roughly, he pushed her hands away, shoved his jeans past his hips, and rolled the condom down.
All of her fantasies crowded her brain, clamoring to be chosen, and she opened her mouth to tell him she wanted to be taken from behind. She’d always thought that would be so sexy, but he, red-faced and barely in control, pushed her legs apart, lifting her thighs around his hips.
“You want this?”
She nodded, speechless from the look of him, the wildness of him. Her body rushed to prepare a welcome as he jerked her pants down one leg. She tried to help him, kicking off her shoes, but he didn’t need much help. He was pretty much a one-man sex machine. The windows were past foggy and the smell in the cab was decidedly earthy.
He licked his hand—oh, so vulgar—and touched her core, his fingers slipping across her wet, hot flesh. He groaned like a man on the rack and then, before she could prepare herself, he thrust inside her.
She screamed.
“Oh God, tell me that’s a good scream.” He rested his slippery, sweaty forehead against her breasts. He kissed one nipple, licked it, panting against her skin.
“So good.” She wiggled her hips, urging him. “Please. I’m so close. I’m so—”
Those eyes of his were magnetic and she could only stare at him, into him, while he slowly slid out of her and then thrust back in. Harder than before. She could feel him in the back of her throat.
“Eli—”
“Shhhh.”
The truck was so small, a cocoon. He couldn’t move far, but he shifted his hips, thrusting forward and easing back in a slow grinding rhythm that her body adored. Her body ate it up.
He cupped her head in his hands, his fingers pulling at her hair, the pain an ecstatic counterpoint to the pleasure of her body. His thumbs touched her lips and she opened her teeth to taste him, the salty pad of his thumb, her tongue exploring the coarseness of his skin.
“Suck,” he breathed.
Her body contracted at the word, the look in his eyes, so feral. Clinging to control, she opened her mouth to let him in.
He growled his pleasure, his approval.
Her body was waking up to every single difference between imagining this man between her legs and the raw reality, between the lonely pleasure she brought herself and the wilderness he was driving her toward. And then, as if she weren’t feeling enough, he leaned down and in time with his next thrust, pulled her nipple into his mouth.